Cassetteboy are an English electronic music and comedy duo. The pair have achieved success with their cut-ups of celebrities such as Alan Sugar and David Cameron to make parodies of their subjects. Several of the duo's videos have gone viral, with up to 6 million views on YouTube. Despite their success, Cassetteboy made no money from their videos due to their questionable legal status, until a revision of UK copyright law in 2014.

Contents

Cassetteboy is a duo of Mark Bolton and Steve Warlin, though the pair prefer to remain anonymous. Bolton has worked writing audio captions for the blind, while Warlin has worked in an art gallery.[2]

The duo's name comes from the use of audio cassette in their early work. Their musical approach can be traced from the origins of sampling, musique concrète and Plunderphonics. Most pieces are constructed from numerous audio and video snippets taken from TV, radio, film and popular music; The Parker Tapes was constructed using the laborious, primitive process of manually splicing segments of audio together via a two-deck tape system, or ghettoblaster; later albums are constructed digitally using sound editing software.[3]

In 2008, the duo progressed to using videos and the internet, in order to teach themselves video editing. They initially struggled with new technology; the "Cassetteboy" page on Facebook and feed on Twitter were owned by other people. The first video uploaded to YouTube was a mashup of then Prime Minister Gordon Brown.[2]

In 2009, they released Cassetteboy vs The Bloody Apprentice, a parody of the UK version of The Apprentice, primarily featuring the mashed-up dialogue of Alan Sugar.[7] As of October 2014, the video has had over 5 million views on YouTube.[3] Sugar says he has watched the video, while Apprentice judge Nick Hewer declared himself to be a fan of it.[4] In 2010, a video clip by Cassetteboy appeared on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross using further clips of Sugar.[citation needed] In December 2014, the duo created a sequel to the video from later series of The Apprentice.[8]

Cassetteboy contributed some of the video clips for spoof clip show2009 Unwrapped with Miranda Hart, and is credited on at least one episode of BBC Radio 4's spoof clippings show Listen Against.[9] In 2010, the duo helped judge entries for London Recut, a project to encourage amateur filmmakers to produce their own work about the city.[10]

In October 2014, Cassetteboy released "Cameron's Conference Rap", featuring cut-up clips of British Prime Minister David Cameron speaking at the annual Conservative Party Conference, set to Eminem's "Lose Yourself". During the following week, the video was viewed 3.5 million times, while Cameron's official speech video only had 44,000.[2]

In September 2015, Cassetteboy responded to the "Piggate" scandal (the claim that Cameron had once inserted “a private part of his anatomy” into the mouth of a dead pig's head in an initiation ritual) with the viral hit Gettin' Piggy With It.[11][12]

In April 2016, Cassetteboy released "Cassetteboy vs Jeremy Hunt", in response to strike action by Junior NHS doctors over contract changes introduced by Jeremy Hunt, the current UK Health Secretary. The video contains mashups of Hunt's recent speeches over the tune of YMCA by the Village People.[13]

The context of their work is often political, but always maintains a humorous aspect. The duo describe themselves as left-leaning politically and think that "it’s good to have a point of view and too much comedy these days is bland and inoffensive".[4] They are opposed to copyright law, saying that they could only have ever achieved popularity by creating works that violate copyright. The legal situation means that they have made no money from their videos despite millions of views.[3] The duo have been approached by advertising agencies to make videos, but have been forced to refuse due to the resulting work being illegal.[4]

In 2014, Cassetteboy welcomed a change in UK law that allows portions of works to be reused for satirical or parody purposes.[15] In an interview for The Guardian, Cassetteboy said "There’s obviously public demand for our videos, but it was more or less impossible for people to pay us to actually make them". The duo compared their edited parody of Dragon's Den to the live-action sketch by Harry and Paul, noting that the content was similar but the legal status significantly different.[3] They take an ambivalent attitude towards copyright infringement as it prevents them from being paid while also allowing them to create work for free, and believe it cannot be effectively controlled.[9]